Stability, resilience, and phase shifts in rocky subtidal communities along the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We used the extirpation, reintroduction, and spread of sea otters (Enhydra lutris) along the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, to evaluate how the otter–urchin–algae trophic cascade creates variation in rocky reef community structure over space and time. By repeatedly sampling both randomly selected and permanently marked sites in areas where sea otters were continuously present, continuously absent, or became reestablished during a 23-year study period, we found a highly predictable association between community phase states (algae abundant or urchins abundant) and the population status of sea otters. In areas where sea otters were continuously present, urchins were rare and algae dominated, whereas in areas where otters were continuously absent, urchins were abundant and algae were rare. Despite this predictability, the species composition and abundance of algae within otter-dominated sites and the abundance of urchins in otter-free sites were spatially and temporally variable. The transition from the urchin-dominated to algal-dominated phase state, brought about by sea otters preying on sea urchins, was documented; at some sites the transition occurred rapidly, whereas at other sites a short-lived transitional state composed of algal–urchin mosaics occurred. We experimentally demonstrate that this mosaic forms when living urchins flee from the damaged tests of conspecifics that are discarded by foraging sea otters, and kelp recruits into the urchin-free patches. Thus, although the phase state dynamics appeared to be stable and predictable based upon the presence or absence of sea otters, we found that spatial and asynchronous temporal variation in recruitment, mortality demography, succession, and prey behavior led to differences in the abundance and/or composition of species within the two phase states.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".